Minimizing Impact on Business Operations During COVID-19

  • April 16, 2020
  • Jeff Gardner
  • Reading Time: 4 minutes

At CalAmp we are committed to our customers, so while you navigate your “new normal”, we’re right there with you, ready to provide support. Whatever your increased needs are today, CalAmp and our solutions can help minimize the impact of COVID-19 on your organization, proactively relieving challenges and optimizing efficiency at every level. Here are some ways we can help during this challenging time.

Increasing Supply Chain Visibility

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the strain on the supply chain for key essentials has forced companies to expand and alter shipment routes. Supply chain visibility solutions deliver real-time insights about the environmental status of pharmaceuticals, electronics, food and other perishables from manufacturing to the point of purchase, helping to manage quality and compliance across land, air and sea shipments. This granular level of visibility allows for rapid deployment of real-time monitoring that can be adapted on an immediate demand basis. Businesses can closely monitor the movements of critical assets, like hospital equipment, ventilators, masks and pharmaceuticals all over the globe 24/7 and redirect shipments to hot spots with the most critical need.

Driver Safety

While medical and emergency response infrastructure are severely burdened, it’s increasingly important to maintain driver safety. Despite the recent relaxation of FMCSA on HOS enforcement, fleet operators should closely monitor driver hours and proactively prescribe rest stops for drivers, being mindful that many dine-in restaurants and rest areas have been shut down. Due to the reduction of traffic on the roads, the California Highway Patrol has also reported higher than normal speeding. Fleet managers can leverage telematics to actively monitor driver behavior in order to provide real-time feedback related to specific parameters, such as speeding and hard-braking, and correct any unsafe behavior according to a predetermined scale of values to protect the driver from road accidents.

Meals on Bus Wheels

While the Here Comes The Bus app was designed to ensure the safe pick up, journey tracking,  and drop off of school children, school districts across the country have adapted the app to provide breakfast and lunch to students in their districts while schools are closed. To maintain physical distancing and provide an orderly and efficient way to distribute the meals, school districts are deploying their buses to deliver food to the same bus stops used during the normal school year. Parents receive real-time notification of the meal delivery, and school administrators can use the app to send out important updates. Check out a story that recently aired on CNN, and let us know how we can help your school district set up a meal delivery program for your students.

Optimizing Fleet Efficiencies

The current state of operations has many companies looking to “do more with less”. Route optimization technology provides drivers with guidance while navigating closure of truck stops, and provides real-time updates on efficient routing through loading and unloading locations. Load optimization enhances the efficiency of cargo through telematics visibility solutions that monitor trailer capacity. The diagnostics data from these applications monitor engine problems and can provide insight into excessive hours of use or other abnormal vehicle events and conditions, during these times when people anxiously await supplies in high demand.

This is a critical time for drivers and assets to operate efficiently ensuring that essential goods are available to those in need. The increased demand from companies that provide key supplies, like food, medicine and protective medical equipment, has prompted an even greater sense of urgency for real-time shipment and supply chain visibility.

Maintaining Government Fleet Operations

As more and more non-essential businesses close, the importance of, and emphasis on, the maintenance of all essential commercial fleets, like delivery service vehicles, and government service fleets, which provide life-saving and disaster relief capabilities, becomes increasingly crucial. With fewer workers available due to necessary and government-mandated health and safety restrictions, essential vehicles must be prepared to deploy with a moment’s notice. Fleet telematics solutions help essential business operators and local governments operate more efficiently and safely.

While smart technology addresses the typical needs of monitoring driver performance and maintaining operational efficiencies, these needs now apply with a new sense of urgency as fleets look to optimize and control costs in operations. In crisis mode, it is vital to be as proactive as possible. Telematics solutions alleviate the pain in searching for reactive answers through prevention and protection.

Providing Peace of Mind

During difficult times, peace of mind is a priceless commodity. Fleet telematics solutions provide real-time information to ease worried minds. Connected car apps enable drivers to stay connected to those that matter most by setting a virtual boundary that sends a notification when a loved one arrives at their destination. These apps also allow users to find the location of the closest emergency services and provide directions for the fastest route that could be critical if a family member or co-worker becomes ill. In the case of an accident, our crash response service can send a real-time notification to our operations center indicating the severity of the crash. Our operators can help speed life-saving assistance to drivers or facilitate towing services.

Stay Connected and Informed

The mobile connected ecosystem is sophisticated, and our cloud-based IoT platform makes all of our business-critical services and applications work together. Our platform captures, analyzes and transforms data from equipment and mobile assets into actionable insights. In a fast-changing environment, it is critical to know the location and status of high-value, high-demand assets. Our platform facilitates integration between CalAmp applications and third-party management systems to enable flexible IoT solutions and innovative telematics services that can be developed to address rapidly evolving operational demands, like emergency food deliveries and medical supplies from international entities. Many multinational shipping enterprises rely on CalAmp, such as Amazon Web Services, which use our cloud platform to build mission-critical business applications that enables them to quickly develop tailored solutions designed around their own applications to meet specific use cases.

Remember, we are all in this together and we are here to help. Stay safe, and let CalAmp provide you peace of mind.